Secrets in the Dark

by KD Blakely

  The howl came again — louder — longer — rising and falling like something out of a werewolf movie. “We better head down to the road. Just in case.” Faith wrapped her arms around her stomach, and looked uneasily to our left.

  “You’re righ—” Doug was cut off by another howl. This one was definitely closer. And it came from our right.

  Note to self — This is way too much like last time!

  As if the last howl was an invitation, an answering howl tore through the air to the left. This one sounded right next to us. Just how many things were out there?

  “Um...how far away do you think those things are?” I asked nervously.

  Branches suddenly cracked and shattered down the hill on the left. I could see something moving through the trees — the leaves shook violently in a long path up the side of the mountain. Heading towards us. It was probably close enough to throw a rock at.

  I wrapped my arms around my chest, shivering, feeling like my blood had frozen. What could be doing that? No way could one of the Rejects do that. Whatever it was, it was really big…or really strong…or both.

  Faith and Olivia stepped next to me as the sounds — twigs being crushed and branches snapped off — grew closer. The look of amazement on Brady’s face would normally have made me laugh. But there was nothing funny about it now.

  Then to our right, loud, splintering noises of trees being ripped apart made us jerk around. Something was moving just out of sight.

  Faith grabbed my arm tightly, and I could feel her hand shaking. Her teeth were digging into her lip so hard I half expected to see blood. Doug and Brady moved next to us and we stood frozen, listening.

  I kept my voice quiet, but couldn’t stop it from shaking as hard as Faith’s hand. “Whatever they are, they’re down there — the way we need to go. Wha-what’re we gonna do?”

  Olivia’s voice was just above a whisper. “It’s like last time. We have to stay on the path in case it’s safer.” Her hands were clasped tightly together. I wondered if they were shaking.

  We all made sure to keep both feet on the narrow path. Maybe it would be better to go over the mountain. I thought about asking Brady where the path would take us, but the splintering, crunching noises were suddenly replaced by a low, angry growl. My heart began to pound, and I felt dizzy. Probably because I’d stopped breathing. I gulped in a quick breath — passing out right now didn’t sound too smart.

  When the growling stopped, all I could hear was my own ragged breathing.

  Why did that feel worse?

  Faith gave a muffled shriek as the growling began again, louder still. Along with the deep animal noises came more crashing sounds from the trees below. We clung together as the growling and crunching grew louder. Closer.

  The sounds intensified — rising in volume and pitch until nothing could be heard except an insane ferocious shrieking. The sound roared up over the hillside. Thunderous and deafening.

  I clapped my hands over my ears. My eardrums felt ready to burst. I tried to yell to Faith and Olivia, but couldn’t hear my own voice over the unbelievable noise.

  Then it stopped. In a single instant. The sudden silence felt…threatening.

  I’d thought it couldn’t get any worse, until I heard a new sound…far more quiet, but even more frightening. Coming from the path above us — from somewhere behind several large boulders, came the hair-raising sound of loud breathing.

  No, not breathing.

  Sniffing.

  Snuffling.

  As if something out there was…smelling us.

  It wouldn’t be safe to leave the path. We couldn’t go up the path over the mountain. Going down into the woods seemed incredibly stupid. But where else could we go? “Should we try going down?”

  The snuffling sound came again, along with the sound of something scraping against the rocks. Like cloth. Or fur.

  “I’m willing,” Brady said. He had the map out of his pocket again and was peering at it intently. “We can’t go back through the cave. The Rejects are still in there.”

  “Down it is. But stick together,” Doug said, like he was giving us an order.

  For once, I didn’t bite off his head for being bossy.

  We made our way down the path towards the trees. My stomach was in knots as I kept waiting for the howling to start again, right next to us. The slightest sound nearly made me jump out of my skin. It’s hard to feel that nervous, minute after minute after minute.

  Finally, when we’d gone quite a distance without anything happening, I began to think we’d be okay.

  I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the road ahead. Being on the path really was better than being in the woods. At least you could see the road from here. And when we were on the road, we’d be safe.

  That was when something crashed past us, across the path. It was moving so fast, I barely got a glimpse, just something huge covered in dark matted hair. It was hunched over like a wolf or a bear. But it wasn’t shaped like any animal I’d ever seen. Besides, nothing normal could move that fast.

  Could Bigfoot live here?

  Whatever it was, it knocked Brady down as it crossed the path. Obviously being on the path wasn’t as safe as being on the road. The thing looked like it aimed right for Brady. The force of it spun Brady in a circle before he hit the ground, his breath knocked out of him in a loud whoosh.

  Even before Brady hit the ground, the thing disappeared on the other side of the path into the woods.

  Doug grabbed Brady’s hand and pulled him to his feet. He was gasping for air, but when Doug asked him if he needed to wait, he shook his head. We hurried the remaining few feet and collapsed onto the road.

  “What was that thing?” Olivia asked.

  Brady shuddered. “Something really big and really hairy.”

  “I figured out that much,” she told him.

  “It smelled really bad,” Brady told her, then groaned and rubber his shoulder where the thing had knocked into him.

  “So we can’t find any people, but we’ve found a big-hairy-smelly-thing running around in here. And it may not be able to get on the road, but it can cross the path.” I sounded slightly hysterical, even to my ears. I took a deep breath and continued more quietly, “Are you okay, Brady?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” He looked up the road, in the direction of the cave. “We should check where the Rejects are.”

  It took him a moment to fish the map out of his back pocket. He checked it quickly and pointed to the red dots representing Ray and the others as they moved out of the cave. The two blue ‘X’ marks, representing whatever treasure might still exist in the cave, stayed still.

  “Uh-oh,” said Faith suddenly. She pointed to where the red dots were moving away from the cave. They were heading straight toward us. “We need to get out of here!”

  Halfway back to the tree, Olivia stopped and growled in the back of her throat. “My backpack! How am I gonna explain why it’s missing?”

  “You have less than an hour to figure it out.” I thought of Mrs. Larsen and wondered how Olivia could possibly explain it. “Good luck with that.”

  Olivia glared and said, “Gee, thanks.”

  We hurried down the road past the cabin. Olivia kept asking herself what she was going to tell her mom. I sure hoped she could think of something before she got home.

  We finally made it back to the tree. After a quick goodbye and thanks to our familiars, we made our way through. As usual, I was really glad when I got safely out on the other side. I told the others I’d call Ronny and make plans to meet after school on Monday. Then we hurried home, wanting to get away from the cemetery before the Rejects followed us.

  Chapter 36

  What’s Up With That?

  We weren’t able to go to Chris and Ronny’s on Monday after all. Olivia hadn’t been able to think of an excuse for losing her backpack, and her mom grounded her for a week for being careless. “After all,” Olivia said, sounding disgusted, “I couldn’t tell her the trut
h.”

  “You’re usually good at telling her only as much of the truth as you want. What happened?”

  “What, like, Hey mom, I left my backpack in the bottom of a cave. What cave? Whoops, can’t tell you.”

  “Okay, so not that part.”

  “You always yell at me for telling people only the parts I want them to know, ‘cause that’s like lying. Now you think that’s what I should’ve done?”

  “Well, in this case, telling the whole truth wouldn’t be such a great idea.”

  “Well, in this case, I couldn’t think of one thing I could tell my mom.”

  

  The next Saturday we hurried to tell Ronny what happened. Brady was excited about the changes to the map. “I’m learning how to use magic. I wished the entire cave would show up on the map. Look...” He waved the map at her.

  Ronny looked both pleased and worried when she saw all the changes.

  “Look at these blue marks. They appeared when Kat asked to see if there was something we should look for. There’s still treasure in the cave.” Brady didn’t notice the concern growing on Ronny’s face. “Then Kat wished she could see us on the map and we appeared as green dots.”

  I told her, “Brady wished Fangface would help get us out of the cave when he broke the lightberries.”

  “Who is Fangface?” Ronny asked, looking alarmed.

  “Fangface is what he calls his familiar. It’s a bat. Anyway, Fangface led us out of the cave.”

  “So things keep growing more and more strange inside Chimera.” Ronny shook her head. “My Mother was right. She suspected you could use the magick in Chimera, but I did not know how easy it would be for you. I do not know if you understand how amazing that map is. You should not be able to make things appear on it like that.”

  “Actually, we shouldn’t be able to go to Chimera. No, that’s not it. Chimera shouldn’t exist.” Brady smiled at her. “But I’m glad it does. I can’t wait to see what else I can show on the map.”

  Olivia said quickly, “I keep wishing the map would work here, but it only works in Chimera.” She sighed. “It would be so great if we could make it work in Santa Ramona.”

  Ronny laughed. “I wish you good luck. No one from Chimera has ever made any but the most basic spells work here in the mundane world. Not since Chimera was first created.”

  “Um, there’s something else you should know.” I thought of the creature that attacked Brady and began to shake. My arms shook. My knees shook. Even my insides. “Brady got attacked by a…thing. It was huge, and covered in long dark hair. Or fur, maybe. I only got a glimpse. It smashed into Brady as it crossed the path. It…it looked like it bumped into him on purpose.”

  Ronny’s brows drew together in a frown. “I cannot tell what it was from that description. It could have been more than one creature.” She licked her lips before continuing. “You saw something alive. That means there may be others alive as well. I will take that as a hopeful sign.”

  She looked at Brady and told him, “It makes me far less hopeful when I think how Ghalynn wrote the Annihilation Prophecy in the cave.” She didn’t say it, but I thought she was afraid it had something to do with everyone missing from Chimera.

  She had the pages from the chest spread over her table, next to Brady’s notes. She took a moment to show some to Brady, pointing out different symbols and their meanings. Then she told him how sentences were normally structured.

  She said, “Ghalynn wrote most of this. He’s never written in code before, but he used to spend a lot of time with my father. I told you my father was from the human world?”

  When we all nodded, she said sadly, “Ghalynn was teaching him about the languages in Chimera. I used to sit with them when I was young. My father has been gone a long time now, but I still miss those times with him and Ghalynn.”

  She smiled wistfully as she continued, “Ghalynn taught us Runic and Standard Chimeran, while Father taught us English. English fascinated Ghalynn. They sometimes discussed the differences for hours.” She shook her head. “I thought I really understood our language well after all those sessions. But I do not understand this at all.”

  She jumped to her feet and paced the length of the table, randomly touching various pieces of paper. “It does not make sense that I cannot read these pages! And those strange symbols from the cave. What can they mean?”

  She whirled around and told Brady, “I do not understand how you translated that into the Annihilation Prophecy. The words are written so strangely in your notes. Are you sure you wrote it down exactly?”

  “Yes. I was very conscientious because I knew it could be important. And I know the importance of signs in Chimera. You don’t forget when you get warned about the road that leads to certain death!”

  “He was totally careful.” I leaned forward and met Ronny’s worried gaze. “We want to know what’s happened to everyone too. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to find out what happened to your mom. And right now, those symbols Brady wrote down are the only clue we’ve got.”

  “Understanding how your language works will make it easier,” Brady assured her. “I’m going to figure out what these writings mean. I’m not going to give up.”

  “I know I forget to tell you often, but I appreciate everything you are doing.”

  “Um, it’s not exactly a hardship or anything. We like going to Chimera,” Doug told her, grinning so wide it made my cheeks hurt to look at him.

  Ronny closed her eyes, then nodded. She looked at each of us, ending with Brady. “Thank you all. I can tell you about the first two pages in the chest, as they were in standard Runic. I will translate for you.” She cleared her throat and the page trembled briefly. “The first page is from Mother.”

  If you are reading this, it has all gone terribly wrong.

  There are many rumors. Some say the Southern witches are plotting to take over Chimera. Some say one witch plans to take Chimera for herself, even if it causes irreparable harm. The only thing that is certain is that a serious takeover shall be attempted soon.

  There are few now I can trust. I was sure Ghalynn was one of those, but after this last week, I do not know what to believe.

  He swears he wants only to protect Chimera, but I saw him as he hid something by the lake. I don’t think I can afford to trust him now. He acted so guilty, and refused to explain his actions. Even when I ordered him to do so as the ranking Council member. He would only say it could be the one thing to save us, if he had interpreted the signs correctly.

  He would not explain those words. Instead, he turned his back and left me. No one has seen him since.

  Please know, once I discovered the true extent of the threat, I tried to find what was hidden. But Ghalynn concealed it with a spell I have not been able to break.

  He did tell me one thing more, though I hesitate to share it. As he turned away, he said what was hidden could only be found by Mundane magick. I know what you are thinking; there must be something wrong with him. All know that Mundane magick cannot exist.

  The belief that Ghalynn has either gone mad or joined a plot to take over Chimera is near to breaking me. He has always been my dearest friend. And in spite of everything, I still believe he wishes no harm to Chimera.

  I must also advise you to avoid Morgana, though this causes me great pain. Some whisper it is she who would like to take Chimera for herself.

  I pray they are wrong.

  I know my sister has long been called evil. All know I disapprove of her treatment of the Mundane. Though many have tried to stop her, she has enjoyed the terrible names the Mundane have called her throughout history: Morgan Le Fey, Banshee, Siren, Fury, Maleficent, Medusa, Hecate, Snow Queen, Harpy. There are so many. Each has been an embarrassment to those who would live in peace with the Mundane.

  But with all her faults, she is still my sister. I do not wish to believe she would betray Chimera. I only ask that whoever finds this be wary.

  Last, I would ask that you find my dau
ghter and make sure she remains safe in the Mundane world. Tell her she has my love.

  Always.

  Glenna Danaan

  Ronny’s voice broke and her eyes were wet. “My mother wrote this,” she said, her voice cracking. “She never told me she was worried about treachery.”

  I asked quickly, “Who’s Morgana?”

  “My aunt. The one who poisoned the apples. I have no trouble believing the whispers about her. I am sure she bears evil intent, but I did not know about the witches in the South. I am so worried. Chimera is still there, but my friends and family are not. Something is very wrong and I can do nothing from here. I have tried time and again to enter Chimera, but it is blocked to me.”

  She turned and looked at Brady. “I have been re-reading Mother’s Book of Light and Shadow.” She bit her lip so hard I was worried it would start bleeding. “There are many pages ripped out. I do not know if Mother removed them or if it was someone else. If it was Ghalynn, we might find where he hid them.”

  She dropped her head in her hands and was quiet for a long moment, breathing hard. “I am sorry. You have done so much for me. All I can ask is whether you are still willing to help.”

  I looked at Olivia, Faith, Doug and Brady. They all nodded. I told her, “We’re still with you, Ronny. What do you want us to do?”

  “Then would you please make one more trip to the cave. After that, you should go to the lake and look for what Ghalynn hid there. You are not magick, but you are Mundane. Maybe that will be enough.”

  I nodded. “We can do that.”

  “It worries me you have no one to help you while you are there. Please remember to be careful. Now that I know you are climbing cave walls, and being bothered by trolls, I will be even more worried until you get back safe.”

  I looked at my friends again. Everyone, even Faith, nodded. I turned back. “We can do this, Ronny. We’ll find what’s in the cave. And whatever Ghalynn hid, we’ll find that too.”

  Chapter 37

  Who Ya Gonna Call?

  November took forever.

  To pass the time, we kept making suggestions about what might be hidden under the blue ‘X’ marks. Our ideas grew bigger and wilder as the month went on.